Charo's year of birth has been the subject of dispute for many years. Official documents in Charo's birthplace of Murcia, her original Spanish passport, and her naturalization papers state that her birth date is March 13, 1941.[3] After immigrating to the United States, Charo claimed that she was born in 1947, then changed it to 1949.[4] She asserted in a 1977 court hearing that her passport and naturalization papers were wrong and that her true year of birth was 1951.[5]

The performer has said in interviews that her parents allowed her to falsify her age to appear older when marrying 66-year-old band leader Xavier Cugat in 1966.[6][7] Numerous articles and interviews published shortly before and at the time of her wedding placed her birth year between 1945 and 1946. In 1964, Charo was referred to as Cugat's "18-year-old protegée".[8] An April 1966 column on the wedding plans stated she was 20 and Cugat was 60.[9] Many sources identified her as 21 on the day of her wedding.[10][11][12]

In October 1977[13]‍—‌the same year in which Charo filed for divorce from Cugat and became a naturalized American citizen‍—‌U.S. District Judge Roger Foley in Las Vegas upheld the 1951 birth year as official, with the performer providing sworn affidavits from her parents in support of her claim.[5][14] Commenting on the disputes over her age, she has said that the public's disbelief could prove advantageous: "But if people really believe I'm older, that's fine. Don't be surprised if I come out with my own cosmetics, a new energy bar and maybe some vitamins."[7]

Charo was born María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza in Murcia, Region of Murcia, Spain. Her father was reportedly a lawyer who fled to Casablanca during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, while her homemaker mother stayed behind in Murcia, raising their children.[citation needed] Charo has occasionally claimed that she was enrolled in a convent as a young child and remained there until she was 15, when a nun stated that she belonged in show business.[15] In the most colorful version of this childhood, Charo's grandmother hired a music professor to give her weekly classical guitar lessons, and he became the first man to enter the convent.[16]

Most sources indicate that she studied classical and flamenco guitar in a school in Madrid founded by Andrés Segovia for underprivileged children.[citation needed] In a 2005 interview, she reminisced: "The institution had great young teachers and students. Everything was a charity. Mr. Segovia, between concerts that's when he'd come, and if you'd been there a year and you weren't good, you'd go out and they would give your place to another young kid."[17]

Charo has stated in several interviews that she graduated with honors from the Madrid school at the age of 16[18][19] in 1967 (the year in which she would have been 16 if her later claims were correct), Charo was well-established in the United States and had made four appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.[20]

Charo was discovered as a young performer by famous bandleaderXavier Cugat, whom she later wed on August 7, 1966. When they married, Cugat was 66 and had already been married four times (Rita Montaner, Carmen Castillo, Lorraine Allen, and Abbe Lane) although reports sometimes listed fewer marriages. An April 1966 column by Earl Wilson on the couple's wedding plans announced, "Sixty-year-old [sic] Xavier Cugat and his 20-year-old Spanish girlfriend and singing star Charo hope to marry in San Cugat, Spain, in a few days if Cugat can convince church authorities his two divorces should not be counted against him since he wasn't married in church."[7] The couple was the first to have their nuptials in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. She later claimed that her marriage to Cugat had been merely a business contract, a way for him to legally bring her over to the United States where he was based.[21] She moved to West 257th Street in The Bronx, New York with her mother and aunt, and was regularly featured in shows with Cugat's orchestra in New York and Las Vegas, as well as in overseas engagements in Latin America and Europe. She claims he was confident in her eventual success from early on, and that she gave him a Rolls-Royce as a parting gift once she legally came of majority age.[citation needed]

Charo's first US TV appearance was on The Today Show. From 1965 to 1967, she performed on The Ed Sullivan Show four times with her husband Xavier Cugat and his orchestra. She appeared on Laugh-In in 1968. She would appear on short chatfests for a few minutes near the end of the show with Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. Her almost complete lack of fluency in the English language was played as a comic focus, with the two hosts laughing at her mangled English. This is around the time that the "cuchi cuchi" line passed into the public arena.

On August 11, 1978, she married her second husband, Kjell Rasten, a producer, in South Lake Tahoe, California, in a civil ceremony attended by 30 guests.[23] Rasten soon became his wife's manager and the couple has one child, a son, Shel Rasten (born 1981), who is the drummer for the heavy metal band Treazen.[24]

In 1975, Dallas Morning News critic Harry Bowman wrote that the ABC network had "penciled in ... a half-hour comedy starring the uninhibited wife of Xavier Cugat" and commented, "This is probably the worst idea of the season."[30] By October of that year, the performer was promoting a special slated for November,[31] but the special did not actually appear until May 1976.[32][33] A TV listing for August 24, 1976, shows what appears to be an unsold pilot airing on ABC at 8:30 pm CST: "Charo and the Sergeant - Situation comedy starring Charo Cugat. Charo's first U.S. job is to be a dancer at an off-limits night club and her conservative Marine Corps husband finds out. The few episodes that were taped ended up being broadcast on the American Armed Forces Network overseas."[34]

By the late 1970s, Charo was being mentioned as an example of how overexposure could damage a celebrity. One such article quoted the "Q score" of Performer Q, Steve Levitt's celebrity popularity rating service, to show that the performer's popularity declined slightly even as her familiarity increased:

Before she gained national fame on talk shows in 1975, bosomy Latina starlet Charo was 'recognized' by 57 percent of Levitt's national television sample and had a 'popularity quotient' of 9 percent. Today, known by 80 percent, a figure as high as Clint Eastwood's 80 percent, Charo's popularity is 8 percent. 'If she was known by 100 percent of the world, chances are her popularity might go down to 7 or 6 percent', Levitt says coolly. That paradox makes some performers think twice when invitations to talk shows come in.

For much of the late 1980s and 1990s Charo had limited visibility as she moved to Hawaii and opened and performed at her own dinner theater while she and Rasten raised their son. Because of the large number of Japanese immigrants to the island state, Charo learned to speak Japanese.[35]

She returned to the dance music scene in June 2008 with the single "España Cañi". The single was released through Universal Wave Records.[37] She performed Rihanna's song "Don't Stop the Music" at the 2009 Muscular Dystrophy Association Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. She appeared as the Celebrity Showtime entertainer aboard Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas cruise ship on Christmas Eve, 2009. She appeared on the Royal Caribbean ship Adventure of the Seas on February 25, 2010, and continues to entertain guests on Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas in May 2010.[citation needed]

On May 23, 2011, she performed parts of her Las Vegas show on the Disney Magiccruise ship's Eastbound Transatlantic crossing to standing ovations. The first half of the show contained more pop oriented pieces while the second half was her playing classical Spanish guitar. She noted her seven years of study with Andrés Segovia several times during this portion of the show. She appeared later in the cruise at an informal autograph-signing session.[citation needed]